The World is Beautiful
by Edjedi
Summary: In 2025, the age of supervillians, Muggle and Magic collide, collaborate and collapse.


Notes: This story will assume that Harry Potter takes place in an alternate universe from are own, one that is otherwise very similar but one where supervillians, I'm sorry, multinational terrorist organizations often dominated by personality cults, emerged in the 2000s, in the Muggle world. The muggle pieces of this are based on a completely different, somewhat cliched but original, at least in the sense of not based on any other work, ideas that I had. Otherwise the usual disclaimers apply.

The red headed waited impatiently, in the lobby, she frequently checked her polished, golden, antique pocket watch. She took time from her fidgeting to glare at a passing teenager, rapidly texting on her smartphone, who snickered at her outdated timepiece. 'Where is he?' she asked herself, frustrated, dropping the watch back into her purse, now fiddling with her wand, carefully keeping it hidden within her dress. 'Come on, he would be late tonight, this will be a fine first impression, Dad will be super happy when we come strolling in ten minutes after everyone's started," she fumed, pacing back and forth. 'Where is he?' drawing stares as her eyes bored holes into the elevator doors.

Just a little earlier.

"You know," Daniel mused to himself, while tying his shoes, "I really should have brought a dress uniform, everyone loves the uniform," instead he had to make do with a crisp blue blazer and matching pants. He shuffled off the bed, angling for the bathroom to check himself in the mirror. Before he could take more than a few steps, with an unusual pop, two robed figures emerged from thin air

One raised a wand, "Impe..." Smack! reacting instantly, without a thought, a roundhouse kick knocked the wand across the room, a quick follow up to the solar plexus doubling over the shocked, disarmed man.

His comrade tried to react, "Stup..." Crunch! A quick, open palm strike, straight to the man's nose, his wand falling from nerveless fingers as he collapsed limply.

The first man, now struggled to his knees crawling towards his wand on the other side of the small room. With two quick steps, Dan reached it before him, snapping it beneath his heel, another kick to the gut to force his attacker to the ground again. But as this last blow connected, with a horrible spurching sound, the top half of the man disappeared, gore spewing from the remnant waist and legs.

"Oh, shit," Dan tried to shake some of the blood from his pants. He cursed further, scanning the room, quickly grabbing his gun from the nightstand. Finding no sign of further threats, he tapped his earpiece implant.

"Dispatch, I have a, eh, situation," he called out to the empty room

"Danny, I mean, nah screw it, what's up," came the casual reply.

"Attacked by two unidentified assailants, in my room, method of entry unknown,"

"Where are they now,"

"One and a half corpses,"

"You couldn't have saved one for interrogation, wait, half a corpse, what you hiding a chainsaw somewhere,"

"Well, the top half of this guy, the one I was trying to take alive, just sort of disappeared when I was kicking him,"

"You expect me to believe you kicked a man in half?"

"No, his torso, it vanished into thin air,"

"That's crazy,"

"It happened,"

"Well, I for one refuse to believe that your feet are interdimensional portals, so we'll have to sort it out when the cleaning crew arrives, and we debrief you,"

"Can the debriefing wait, like a couple hours, I have a date,"

"Yeah, no. Come on, you know that,"

"Well it's a really big... My shoes, oh shit!"

"What?"

"They're covered in blood and, entrails, that's not gonna come out. These my nice shoes,"

"Quit whining, ETA is fifteen minutes,"

"And she's probably already here, I can't go down like this,"

"Then call her, I'll hold,"

"She doesn't have a cellphone,"

"She doesn't, who the hell doesn't have a cellphone?"

"Rose apparently, anyway, you're sending one of our crews, right, I don't want to have to explain this mess to some bobbies,"

"Don't try to sound British, it, it's you're just bad; how you ever infiltrate _anything_ is beyond me,"

"Supervillians mostly just want their mooks to grunt and smash things, it's pretty relaxing really; would it contaminate the scene too much if I got out of these bloody pants, its soaking into my socks,"

"Hold off, they're coming, I wrangled one of our patrol cars, should give you a decent excuse,"

"Sweet, I owe you one, they're going to do something about this carpet, right 'cause it's gonna have to be steam cleaned or something, viscera dripping all over the place,"

"Yes whatever, they're professionals, probably do your laundry. Jeez, no wonder Delta Forces or the SEAL's need to bail you out all the time, whining about everything,"

"Shut up, if I had million dollar battle suits, I'd be an unstoppable killing machine, too,"

"Sure, keep dreaming,"

"Whatever," Dan fumed quietly, fidgeting impatiently.

Rose, livid, consumed by her fury, clenching her teeth, barely resisting the urge to start cursing things, was taken by surprise as two uniformed policemen burst into the lobby, hurrying to the elevator, brushing aside the other residents. In the confusion, she missed the other three nondescript, plainclothes, carrying stuffed bags, headed up the stairs. Her heart leaped into her throat, 'no clearly, Dan wouldn't be, couldn't be, it's just a coincidence,' she told herself. Barely able to breathe, she sprinted to the bathroom, ducking into a stall, fumbling as she pulled out her wand, she cast a Disillusion Charm, popping back out, the other lobby members sparing a questioning look at the door, that seemed to open on its own. She rushed to the stairs, the elevator already gone, shoving past the others, who looked on in confusion as they stumbled into nothing.

She stopped, panting on the landing, alone for the moment, and pushed onward, the door slamming behind her, drawing the suspicion of those behind her.

'417, 418," an icy chill ran down her spine, the policemen were headed for the same door she was, entering casually, 'Is that a good sign, a routine call instead of a brutal murder?' she pondered, guts twisting, she really wasn't sure how Muggle law enforcement worked. She silently cursed her lack of foresight, she had no convenient way to eavesdrop. She sidled along the wall to the very edge of the door, leaning in as far as she dared, it wouldn't do to let someone run into her. She struggled to make out the muffled voices beyond,"

"You couldn't even try to clean up a little?" a voice she didn't recognize asked petulantly

"They want full forensics, on account of the weird, no touching," that was Dan, he was alright, and, talking pretty casually about something.

"So what are we for?" the other voice continued.

"Maintaining cover, also carrying things the techs point to," Dan replied flippantly.

As she tried to puzzle out what the hell this conversation was about, she almost missed the arrival of the other team, she hurriedly pressed herself against the wall, inches from the them as they passed, and entered her boyfriend's room.

"Hey, what, Jesus Christ! How did you even _do _that," the lead cleaner exclaimed.

"Not entirely certain, kind your job,"

"Well, how the hell are we supposed to do that, I mean what the hell is the test for disappearing torso?"

"Whatever, does that mean I can get out of these pants?"

"Sure, leave 'em here, we'll run, I don't know, every freaken' test and see what comes up; bag the corpses," their voices became too faint to hear, they were moving away from the door.

Rose's mind raced, should she confront Dan over this creepy stuff, 'bag the corpses?' or should she just leave, maybe tell somebody else, get a fresh perspective? or should she just keep spying? Her curiosity temporarily overrode her common sense, she examined the door, trying to find a way to see what was going on behind it, opening would raise too much suspicion. She wasn't sure which of Uncle George's party tricks would help here, but she was certain one would have solved her problem if she'd had it. She heard footsteps, and jumped away from the door, in case someone was coming out.

"Hey, careful with that," Dan called out, to somebody for some reason, eavesdropping was apparently less useful than she remembered it being.

"Why, what is it?"

"OK, A: when somebody tells you to be careful with something, the correct response is not to ask why while waving it around, and B: I have no idea, but Splinter Brain there seemed to think it was a weapon,"

"This stick?"

"He pointed it at me like he thought it might stop him from getting his face caved in, and I'm inclined to trust people who pop out of thin air and try to kill me, so yeah, be careful,"

"I can't actually tell if that was sarcasm,"

"Just put it in a little bag and be done with it; are we going, what's the cover story?"

"Oh, we're arresting you,"

"What! Thanks a lot, what the hell,"  
>"Relax, it'll be a simple misunderstanding, mistaken identity, we checked you have a confirmed alibi, and a perfect excuse to be out of circulation for a day or two. Come along,"<p>

The door was opening, Dan, flanked by the fake police, Rose, pushed herself against the wall again, waiting for them to pass, Dan's right hand twitched and then he fell step behind. Then with astonishing speed, he struck, pinning her to the wall by the throat with his forearm, his pistol pressing against her right eye.

"Don't move a muscle," he ordered.

She couldn't respond, could barely breathe, and now Dan felt something was wrong as well, where was the throat guard or the eyepiece for the battlesuit?

"Aren't you a little short, for a stormtrooper?" he mocked her coldly, his allies flanking. "Decloak. Now!"

Dark edges creeping into her vision, Rose couldn't find her wand to dispel the charm. She tried to choke out a plea, "Caaghnnt gkkk," was all she could spit out. Dan pulled back, just enough to let air back into her lungs. He reached up, touching her cheek, again surprised to find bare skin and not a helmet or a mask, keeping the barrel of his gun firmly fixed in front of her. "Decloak," reached for her wand, but then she was off her feet again, his arm on her throat, "Don't move,"

"Can't ... do ... both," she gasped out. Dan froze, eyes bugging out, gaping like a walleye, "Rose?" he asked hesitantly, baffling the others. "What the hell..." he let her go, backing up a step. The man to the right objected, "You're letting her go?"

"Shut up," he spun around to face him and then back, "Rose, what are you doing, how are you doing this?" he asked softly.

Now able to reach her wand, she disapparated with a crack.

Daniel reached out, touching the wall, feeling around, nothing.

"Great work there, you lost her,"

"Yes, because the important thing here is assigning blame and not, the, I don't know, Goddamn teleportation!"

"I think it's time to kick this up the chain of command a bit,"


End file.
